Love city
Our transgender-friendly city provides a dating-scene playground.

By Charlie Anders

TRANSGENDER PEOPLE IN other cities speak of San Francisco in hushed voices. It's the city that pays for sex-change surgeries for its employees. The place where genderqueer performances take place more often than flights to Fiji. But what these non-Bay Area T.G.s really want to know is, is it easier to get dates here?

Dating is confusing for everyone, but especially for people who started out as one gender and took on another. Trying to slot yourself into gay or straight dating scenes can be a challenge. Those who pass as their new gender – and those who are closeted – must decide when, and what, to tell their dates.

Luckily, San Francisco does offer some advantages over other places. Locals are more likely to be au fait with Transgender 101, and many queer and women-only spaces work hard to be T.G.-friendly. Most important, many people here take a transgender presence for granted.

Almost any city over a certain size has a nightclub like Divas, where mostly straight men pursue T.G. women. And drag king/queen shows that attract transgender audience members are common in most cities too. What sets our city apart, first and foremost, is the sheer number of so many gender swirlies in one place. You see us everywhere, buying floor cleaner and washing our dogs, and that visibility subverts the genderscape.

Ask a local transgender person where he or she meets dates, and the answer is likely to be, say, the Laundromat.

"In Peoria or wherever, it's going to be a hell of a lot harder to meet people," says Stafford, a lanky blond guy who runs FTM personals groups on Yahoo! and Friendster. It's a lot more dangerous to be "out" as trans in other parts of the country, he adds.

Stafford mostly cruises online, but others prefer to look for chemistry in person. Talk to local T.G.s and genderqueers, and the same venues will come up again and again as T.G.-friendly. Transgenders of all stripes mention El Rio, the Cherry Bar, the Lush Lounge, the Lexington Club, Bondage a Go Go, the Odeon, Anon Salon, Blue Muse, Marlena's, and Martuni's.

"I met my most recent boyfriend at the Lexington, of all places," says Todd, an accountant who also does volunteer development. "Everyone says you can't meet anyone to date at the Lex, but I met him there. We get along fabulously, and he rocks my world." Todd says his longest relationships have been with "other tranny fags" who identify as FTM, male, or genderqueer.

"It's harder to get dates in a gay bar with women," Stafford says. "They just see me as some fag. If I go to the Lexington, I get largely ignored." So when Stafford goes to a "dyke space," he usually goes with "women who obviously belong there." And if he sees someone hot, he'll try to get a mutual friend to introduce them.

Events focused on transgender people also offer a chance to meet other T.G.s or people who like T.G.s. The crew behind Kithology.org's Transgender Portal run a number of events listed on the Web site. And the same crew are publishing a book called How to Fuck a Tranny to provide guidance and insights to would-be tranny lovers.

The United Genders of the Universe support group organizes a regular event called Gender Pirates. El Rio hosts a bevy of benefits for queer/trans causes, plus regular club nights like Karma and Vroom (check www.elriosf.com for dates). A number of local performance events boast a transgender presence and great cruising potential, including "Wicked Messenger" and "In Bed with Fairy Butch."

As easy as it is for trannies to meet dates in the local queer scene, it may be somewhat harder to meet straight people. Stafford lived in New York City recently, and he found it easier to date straight women there. "The women that I dated there were less connected with a lesbian scene or identity," Stafford says. In San Francisco his dates tend to be dyke-identified.

San Francisco has plenty of "admirers," people who desire transgender people because of their transgender status. While some T.G.s hate the idea of being fetishized, others groove on the attention. Stafford says some FTMs believe anyone who digs FTMs in particular is going on the assumption that they're "safer" than bio-boys.

Trans women who want to meet straight men can go to Divas, or to the Power Exchange, especially on Thursday nights. But the men in both places are likely to only be looking for sex.

The Bay Area's growing transgender scene may only add to the fragmentation of the local queer scene, in which gay men with Cher tattoos only hang out with other gay men with Cher tattoos.

Within the local transgender scene, the dating pool breaks down further based on sexual orientation. Some FTMs identify as trans fags, meaning they date men or other FTMs. Others prefer to date women. Some trans women are lesbians; others prefer men. Both cross-dressers who are married to women and trans women who date men are likely to call themselves "heterosexual," so you can't make any assumptions about what it means to be "straight" among trans people.

A fragmented scene makes it easier to find people to date, says Sarah, a systems administrator who only dates local lesbians. She's found a subculture of polyamorous and kinky dykes who've accepted her, and hasn't had to "wade through a larger, more diverse community" to find it.

The main downside, according to Sarah, is that with the "small world" feeling that comes from divided subcultures, it's easy to gain a "rep," or feel as though you've already dated everyone you'd be interested in.

Visibility also has its downsides: it's harder to go "stealth" when most locals have already seen tons of transgenders. Many local trans people are resigned to being clocked. If dates can't figure out her status on their own, Web designer Nina Rage says, "then the bell curve is just too high for them. They'll swiftly be culled from the herd and processed into handbags or some other useful item."

"I think that most folks know I am trans just by looking at me," says Todd, who hasn't had top surgery and doesn't bind his chest because of back pain.

Sarah makes sure to tell people before, or during, the first date. "No 'Crying Game' scenes for THIS grrl!" she writes.

But Shawna Virago, a local musician and activist, says some of her dates would "freak out" if they knew she was transgender, so she doesn't always share it. "I don't believe transgender people need to reveal their gender status unless they want to."

Sean, who identifies as genderqueer, says his dates usually see him as a butch dyke. But he makes a point of explaining to dates that he prefers the male pronoun, if they haven't already picked it up from his friends. "I haven't run into a female who has turned me down as a potential date because of it," Sean says. "Yet."

As the death of transgender teenager Gwen Araujo has proved, violence against transgender people is still a huge concern, even in the relatively trans-friendly Bay Area. "We live in a very transphobic culture, and transgender people experience a lot of dating violence," Virago says.

Whomever they date, transgender people are looking for partners who see them as multifaceted people, not just as trannies. "I am a pretty complex person, even with my trans-ness aside," Todd says. "I am a writer and an anarchist. I like zombie movies, cheap beer, and small dogs. I do a lot of volunteer work, and I never mate my socks. I am surly before I have coffee in the morning, and all my favorite childhood foods involved bacon grease. So, yeah, I hope that my potential partners are looking at the full picture."